‘Abusive rabbi’ Elior Chen to be extradited to Israel

The Brazilian Ministry of Justice has signed an agreement securing the extradition of ‘Rabbi’ Elior Chen to Israel, Ynet learned Thursday. […]

Chen has been trying to evade his extradition for two weeks, and filed various appeals to Brazilian courts to this effect. The State Prosecutor’s Office’s international department fought against these appeals, eventually securing the extradition. […]

The announcement signaled an end to the long legal battle over the fate of the suspected ringleader in one of the worst child abuse cases in Israeli history.

Chen, a self-styled rabbi, allegedly influenced members of his flock to abuse their children in order to “correct their corrupt souls.”

His alleged crimes became known after two brothers, one three years old and the other four-and-a-half, were rushed to hospital on March 12, 2008 after suffering from abuse.

The younger child suffered severe brain damage and has not recovered. The older one, who was admitted with burns, was released three weeks later.

Their mother was indicted for the crime. It emerged that she belonged to a cult led by Chen, who, after the affair became public, fled first to Canada and later to Brazil.

From an earlier story:

“The defendant turned to a rabbi and asked for his advice in terms of his children’s education.

The rabbi concluded that the children were ‘possessed’ with evil spirits and advised the defendant and other suspects to carry out ‘tikkunim’ on the children in order to help them get rid of those demons.”

The indictment went on to say that the rabbi instructed the mother to conduct “tikkunim” on the children – “meaning, jolting, beating, tying, burning organs, feeding them with faeces, and more.

“Two of the suspects were put in charge of educating the children, and systematically abused them and the defendant’s other children in a large number of cases, for a long time, claiming that these ‘tikkunim’ were aimed at removing these evil spirits from the children.”

Some of the acts of abuse were also described in the indictment. “The defendant, who knew about the abuse, continued to desert her children.”